


This earth I rise from

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [231]
Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale), Cinderella - All Media Types, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Magic, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3102296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she is older and wiser, Jocelyn will know the signs of a curse.  </p><p>[or: beware the one with patience]</p>
            </blockquote>





	This earth I rise from

**Author's Note:**

> Title: This earth I rise from  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Sylvia Plath  
> Warnings: character death; AU  
> Pairings: Cinderella/the prince  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 700  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: author's choice, author's choice, beware the anger of a patient man

Jocelyn's mother had been the sweetest woman in the world. She was the beloved only child of minor nobility and earned the devotion of the second son of a duke. They were wed in the spring and Jocelyn joined them three years later. 

Jocelyn’s life was quite happy until her mother developed a cough in the winter of her sixth year; she soon wasted away, no matter what the healers hired by her father tried. 

(When she is older and wiser, Jocelyn will know the signs of a curse. But her father was blind, and the healers’ tongues could not speak the words. Such is the power of magick.) 

Jocelyn’s mother was buried with due ceremony in the late months of winter and her father remarried the next summer. Jocelyn’s stepmother was the daughter of a count and with daughters from her first marriage to a marquess who were three and two years older than Jocelyn. 

Until her father’s death, her stepmother was kind. But in Jocelyn’s eighth year, her father died in a rainstorm when a branch fell as he hurried back from a town meeting. 

(When she is older and wiser, Jocelyn will know the signs of a curse.)

…

The first servant dismissed was Jocelyn’s nurse. The last was the cook. While Jocelyn scrubbed the floor and washed every piece of cloth in the manor, her stepmother and stepsisters had lessons behind closed doors that burned the very air – she could feel it. For three years, she did not know what it meant. 

…

When Jocelyn was eleven, she met her fairy godmother. 

“Oh, you poor child!” the winged woman wailed. “How brokenhearted your mother would be! Sweet Carolyn’s daughter a servant!” 

“Slave, actually,” Jocelyn corrected her, annoyed. “Servants get paid.” 

Her godmother wailed louder. Jocelyn waited until she calmed and then asked gently, “How may I help you, milady?” 

…

Twice a week for eight years, Jocelyn learned magick. As she grew more skilled, she recognized the signs of magick all over her parents’ home. Her stepsisters grew ever more beautiful – magically enhanced, she could tell now. While she herself grew ever plainer. 

She knew now the signs of a curse. 

…

When the proclamation went throughout the realm that the prince would be seeking a bride at a ball, Jocelyn’s stepmother and stepsisters began to plan.

Jocelyn asked if she could attend, as she was still the daughter of a noble, and her stepmother said she could – if she finished all her work on time and had something suitable to wear. Her stepsisters then insured she did not. Jocelyn tearfully watched them leave in her mother’s carriage. 

Once they were gone, she wiped away her tears and went to work. 

…

Jocelyn started in the wine cellar. Her godmother arrived when she was in her stepmother’s suite and demanded, “Girl, what are you doing?” 

“Cleansing,” Jocelyn said. “For too long, there has been a blight on my parents’ house.” 

“This is dark magick!” her godmother protested. “I did not teach you this!” 

“You taught me, godmother, that magick is in the intent.” She laughed softly. “My intent is pure.” 

“I cannot allow you to do this,” her godmother said sadly, pulling out her wand.

“I beg your pardon,” Jocelyn murmured. “Begone.” 

In Jocelyn’s house, with her magick anchored into the earth, there is no other master. Her godmother was banished, never allowed to return. 

…

Her stepfamily returned, the prince halfway in love with her older stepsister. Had they never set foot again in the house, it is entirely possible that all would have been well. Jocelyn is merciful. 

But they stepped in, stepmother and then stepsisters, and Jocelyn’s magick enacted her will. 

…

In the spring of her twentieth year, Jocelyn attended court for the first time. She was beautiful in a golden dress, her dark hair piled onto her head. She caught the prince’s eye. She didn’t even need her magick. 

…

In the summer of her twenty-sixth year, Jocelyn’s husband ascended the throne and she became queen. Her godmother attended the coronation. 

“What happened to Carolyn’s sweet child?” her godmother asked, distraught. 

Jocelyn smiled at her, oh so gently. “She survived, godmother.” With a glance to her husband, Jocelyn said, “She thrived.”


End file.
